making impact factor impactful: universities, think tanks
TRANSCRIPT
Making ‘Impact Factor’ Impactful: Universities, Think Tanks and Policy Research in Pakistan
Arif Naveed1 and Abid Q. Suleri2
Sustainable Development Policy Institute, Islamabad
1 Visiting Associate at Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI) Islamabad and Doctoral Researcher at the Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge, UK. Email: [email protected] 2 Executive Director, Sustainable Development Policy Institute, Islamabad. Email: [email protected]
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Contents Acronyms Acknowledgments A. Introduction B. Relational Dynamics of Knowledge Systems for Policymaking
C. Structure of the Paper
D. Research Design
E. Social Sciences in Pakistan
1. Higher Education Reforms F. The Landscape of Policy Research in Pakistan G. Conceptualizing Universities and Think Tanks
1. Institutional Characteristics 2. Relationships and Underlying Motivations 3. How does funding shape relationships between think tanks and universities? 4. Case Studies
H. Conclusion Figure 1: Increase in PhD outputs during 1947-2002 and 2001-2012 Figure 2: Discipline wise breakdown of PhDs produced Table 1: Discipline Wise Breakdown of the PhD Scholarships at Pakistani Universities Table 2: Discipline-Wise Breakdown of the Overseas PhD Scholarships Table 3: Annual research outputs 2002-10 Table 4: Summary of the Institutional Dynamics of Think Tanks and Universities Table 5: Representation of universities in the annual SDCs Box 1: Theme-wise Overview of the Institutions of Policy Research in Pakistan Box 2: Agglomeration of Research Institutions in Lahore References Annexes Annex A: List of key informants interviewed Annex B: Landscape of the institutions of policy research in Pakistan – geographical mapping
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Acronyms
AERC Applied Economic Research Centre AKU Aga Khan University BNU Beaconhouse National University CERP Centre for Economic Research and Policy DFID Department for International Development HDR Human Development Report HEC Higher Education Commission IDE Institute of Development Economics IDEAS Institute for Development and Economic Alternatives IDRC International Development Research Centre IED Institute for Educational Development KPK Khyber Pakhtunkhwa LUMS Lahore University of Management Sciences LSE Lahore School of Economics MHHDC Mahbub-ul-Haq Human Development Centre NCCR National Centre for Competence Research NGOs Non-Government Organisations NUCES National University for Computer and Emerging Sciences NUST National University of Science and Technology PIDE Pakistan Institute of Development Economics PSSP Pakistan Strategy Support Programme QAU Quaid-i-Azam University RECOUP Research Consortium on Educational Outcomes and Poverty SDPI Sustainable Development Policy Institute SDC Sustainable Development Conference SPDC Social Policy Development Centre UNDP United Nations Development Programme USAID United States Agency for International Development
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Acknowledgement
Authors are thankful for the financial support provided by the Think Tank Initiative (TTI) for
conducting this study. While the authors have taken lead in producing this country paper, it is
an outcome of the generous contributions made by several people. Writing this paper would
have been impossible without the invaluable inputs at various stages of the project by Zalla
Khattak and Abdur Rab who also conducted most of the interviews with key informants. The
logistic support provided by Wajeeha Javed and Abrar Ahmad during data collection is also
acknowledged. Authors also thank Geof Wood and Mathilde Maitrot for their help in
conceptualising the study and developing the instruments for data collection, and Ayesha
Salman for providing the editorial support. Special thanks are due to colleagues at TTI,
specifically, Peter Taylor for reviewing the paper and providing technical support to the project,
and Susan Merpaw and Shannon Sutton for facilitating at various stages of the project.
Authors take the full responsibility of the views expressed in this paper.
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A. Introduction
Today’s Pakistan faces complex development challenges at all fronts requiring sophisticated
policy responses. Amidst this complexity is the ongoing democratic transition creating new
demands for transparency, accountability and informed decision-making. These demands are
multiplied by devolution under the 18th Constitutional Amendment in 2010 resulting in
provincial autonomy and multiplying the actors in the arena of policymaking. The need for a
context-specific knowledge-base has thus increased manifold during the recent years. In
contrast to this escalated need, the provision of knowledge for public policymaking appears
inadequate and is marred with serious institutional challenges. At the core of these challenges
is an overall weak research capacity, an alleged culture of disregard for evidence in decision-
making and somewhat declining in-house capacities of policy makers to engage with research
and analysis (Ikram 2011; Wood 2013).
The existing literature indicates that the frequency and intensity of political, social, and natural
occurrences often outpace the capacity of policy discourse generated in the country to cope
with, understand, respond to, and shape these developments in the future (Fiaz 2012; Naveed
2013a). Policy interventions in the absence of a vibrant discourse tradition, therefore,
generally lack the required social consensus, which on the one hand undermines the success
of such interventions, and on the other, creates a culture of ex-post analysis and crisis-driven
responses instead of careful forecasts and prepared strategies. The ineffectiveness and
insufficiency of policy discourses to precede interventions and events, therefore, merit a
systematic analysis of the challenges that surround the formal knowledge systems supporting
public policies. This gains particular importance in the wake of a scarce existing understanding
of the ways various actors in research provision interact with each other and participate in
policy processes.
Providers of policy research clearly have a critical role in Pakistan’s overall development
process and democratisation through their contribution towards improving transparency and
accountability. The available literature on research providers focuses on the overall state of
social sciences as the key determinant of research capacities (Inayatullah, Saigol and Tahir
2005; Zaidi 2002; Khattak 2009), the institutional dynamics of the providers of policy research
(Naveed 2013a), and their relationship with the consumers of research, i.e. policy makers
(Wood 2013;). Such literature highlights that due to historic, ideological, political and cultural
reasons, and as a consequence of weak disciplinary and methodological training at most
universities in Pakistan, social science based knowledge produced in the country is not just
low in quantity but is also of poor quality.
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Studies landscaping the key actors in policy research in Pakistan show that the number of
active providers of policy research is fewer compared to the complexity of policy needs.
Notwithstanding the recently devolved context of policymaking, research providers are
geographically clustered in Islamabad and Lahore (Naveed 2013a). 3 The landscape
predominantly consists of non-government entities with a virtual absence of the public sector.
The scarce engagement of universities in addressing questions raised by policy needs,
despite a dramatic improvement in the higher education sector over the last fifteen years,
appears paradoxical.
The available political economy analysis of research and its uptake into policies demonstrates
the pitfalls associated with the overwhelming reliance of policy research on external donors
(Wood 2013). There is a growing realisation amongst key stakeholders that the exclusive
reliance of policy research on a financially vulnerable non-government sector results in
research priorities influenced by international donor agencies, and has its own challenges.4 It
is observed that often uncoordinated projects, reflective of deeper problems of international
aid, fragment the core development narratives into uncoordinated and at times incoherent
discourses with implications for the uptake of such research into policies (ibid.).
Such research highlights another concern that the current models of technical, financial and
strategic support to policy research can potentially push the resource deficient and politically
less engaged traditional knowledge providers, universities, further away from the locus of
influence. These challenges necessitate a serious rethinking of the funding paradigms and
modalities to bring the relatively autonomous research actors into their active role of solving
the problems faced by society. However, efforts to engage universities with policy processes
in the current policy contexts imply bringing them closer to other key actors contributing to
policy discourses. There is thus a need to understand the ways both groups of institutions are
currently positioned in the landscape of policy research and the ways they are engaged with
each other.
B. Relational Dynamics of Knowledge Systems for Policymaking
Informed by the complexity of policy processes which are the sites of contestation,
cooperation, and convergences of various actors with competing agendas and variable
abilities to mobilise resources to demand policy change (Nohrsted and Weible 2010), this
study explores the relational dynamics of the providers of policy research. It examines
particularly the ways think tanks and universities in Pakistan within their respective mandates
3 See annex 2 for a geographic mapping of the institutions of policy research in Pakistan. 4 The current study, part of several regional studies funded by the IDRC, reflects this concern.
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interact with each other, sometimes cooperating, sometimes competing, sometimes
disassociating themselves with each other, and yet at other times converging into each other.
These insights are important for improving the independence and quality of research being
produced. Moreover, such an understanding contributes to the debate on reconceptualising
the societal role that universities are increasingly expected to play, as is being realised under
the new leadership of the Higher Education Commission (HEC).5
This overall context thus presents a compelling case for a nuanced understanding of policy
research environs, and the role of different knowledge communities in policy processes. A
range of stakeholders are actively engaged in supporting the generation of policy relevant
knowledge to strengthen the culture of informed policymaking.6 We argue that strengthening
independent think tanks is an important strategy, there are however other actors in the
knowledge system mandated to produce policy relevant research with often competing
interests, agendas and variable abilities to mobilise resources to demand policy change (ibid.).
These suppliers of research such as think tanks and universities operate in relation to each
other: as competitors or collaborators, and as barriers or facilitators of each other’s demands
(Hogan and Doyle 2007). At the same time, these groups of institutions are arguably located
differently in the value chain of policy relevant knowledge, occupy different historic, political
and ideological places in the overall policy landscape due to a number of factors, including but
not confined to the organisational structures, respective mandates, sources of funding, and
policy engagement constraints and opportunities.
Understanding patterns of these relationships is critical for strengthening policy research
organisations. As the need for independent policy research increases over time, it is
imperative to explore how externally funded research institutions interact with other research
providers. A broad understanding of these interactions can help rethink aid modalities in such
a way that strengthening one group of institutions does not compromise the other and is rather
mutually benefitting through greater collaborations and constructive engagement. In the given
context, the IDRC commissioned the Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI) and the
Indian Institute of Dalit Studies (IIDS) to explore the relationship between think tanks and
universities in South Asia. This Pakistan Country Paper explores the following questions:
1. What are the different types of relationships between think tanks and universities in
Pakistan? What are the most important drivers, features, and consequences of these
relationships in Pakistan’s research knowledge environment?
5 As expressed by the Chairman of HEC, the Vice-Chancellors of PIDE, QAU, Allama Iqbal Open University, Fatima Jinnah Women University , and Karachi University and the Rector of the IIU at an SDPI seminar on April 21, 2014. 6
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2. How are the relationships between think tanks and universities in Pakistan affected by
the externally provided support to the policy research capacity building? How does
providing support to one type of institution (think tanks) affect these relationships?
3. What are the ways in which think tanks and universities have developed mutually
beneficial relationships, particularly in cases where support provided to one has
generated increased value for the other?
C. Structure of the Paper
This paper is divided into seven sections. The next section on research design is followed by
an appraisal of the overall weak state of social sciences in Pakistan which are the key
determinant of research capacities of both think tanks and universities. It demonstrates
continuity of the historic bias against social sciences inherent in higher education reforms over
the last 15 years. It is followed by the overview of the institutional context of policy research
highlighting Pakistan’s landscape of research institutions and some of their political economy
dynamics. The subsequent section presents the empirical findings beginning with outlining the
distinct organisational characteristics of think tanks and universities before moving on to
presenting the patterns of their mutual relationships and underlying incentives and
disincentives. This is followed by a discussion on the role of funding arrangements in shaping
these relationships. We then present four case studies that validate our analysis and
demonstrate various forms of relationships between think tanks and universities. The last
section concludes this paper by synthesising the analysis and making some key
recommendations to strengthen the overall knowledge systems for policymaking in Pakistan.
D. Research Design
The universe of the study consisted of think tanks and universities in Pakistan. In 2012, SDPI
conducted a detailed landscaping of the institutions of policy research and identified the key
actors who constituted the sample of this study (for details, please see Naveed 2013a). The
sample comprising 15 think tanks and 17 university departments was located in Islamabad,
Rawalpindi, Lahore, Faisalabad and Karachi, representing the geographic spread of policy
research institutions across the country. The initial plan to gather data by organising the
focused group discussion of researchers based at these institutions was substituted with in-
depth semi-structured interviews given the need for data on subtle institutional dynamics as
well as the difficulties in bringing together the experts from both groups of institutions. In total,
32 interviews were conducted with the heads of the organisations/departments or senior
researchers and faculty members.
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The interview schedule consisted of two sections. First section gathered quantitative
information on the proportion of collaborative projects out of total research and advocacy
projects conducted by the institution over the last three years, the extent of collaboration, i.e.
institutional and individual, across core areas, including research, advocacy, teaching and
training. Second section of the questionnaire, which was extensively qualitative, covered:
respondents’ perceptions on the quality of research produced by think tanks and universities;
their knowledge of and opinion about the nature of relationship between think tanks and
universities; key areas where the two groups of institutions compete, cooperate and
collaborate with each other; major incentives and disincentives for collaboration; financial
resources available for research; the conditions associated with these resources; and the
extent to which funding conditionality shapes the relationship between the two groups of
institutions. It also gathered respondents’ opinions on the best ways to strengthen the
relationship between the two groups of institutions. All interviews took place in the offices of
the respondents and the duration ranged between one to two hours. These interviews were
audio-recorded and transcribed subsequently. These data were substantiated by the further
scanning of the websites of sampled institutions. Additionally, four case studies capturing the
instances of various forms of interactions between think tanks and universities in the country
were developed and are presented in this paper.
The quantitative section was not fully responded to by most think tanks and universities since
the records of the instances of formal and informal collaborations were not readily available.
Our requests for compiling these records for this study were partially responded to by some
think tanks without providing the sufficient depth and breadth of quantitative data to present in
the country paper. Therefore the data generated is essentially qualitative.
E. Social Sciences in Pakistan
The critical and analytical faculties required in the highly inter-disciplinary field of policy
research depend heavily upon the state of the social sciences. At the time of its inception,
Pakistan inherited very weak infrastructure for social science training and research
(Inayatullah 2001), which continues to remain weak despite certain phases of development.
The ideological context and the political history of the country are often drawn upon by many
analysts to explain the poor state of social sciences. The successive dictatorial and quasi
dictatorial political regimes had serious bearings for the autonomy of the academic institutions
by absorbing them into bureaucratic procedures and subjecting them to the civil service rules
(ibid.). Zaidi (2002) stratified the post-independence period into five distinct phases of social
sciences in Pakistan. Most of the pre-independence policies were followed in the first phase,
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1947-58. The second phase, 1958-71, was characterised by a ‘nexus’ between bureaucracy
and military with a strong US influence on the policies. Albeit a lack of independence, the
development of social science picked up some momentum towards the end of the 1960s.
In Zaidi’s view, the academic institutions started strengthening their roots from 1971 to 1977,
which was the ‘first democratic’ era in the new Pakistan and was far freer and more liberal,
and perhaps more creative as well. The subsequent military regime from 1977 to 1988, which
constitutes the fourth phase, was a huge setback on the social and academic structure of the
country through various tools including Islamization of the state and society including higher
education. With a transitory period between 1988 and 1999, yet another military coup by
General Pervez Musharraf put an end to the democratic era, however, with different
implications for social sciences from the previous dictatorships. The establishment of the HEC
promoted social sciences to some extent by sending a number of students and faculty
members of universities abroad for doctoral training. While these investments are still being
made, much of the research during and after this era has been produced outside universities,
mainly in think tanks.
From Zaidi’s perspective, the political culture of the country promoted a ‘conformist’ view
instead of critical thinking necessary for the progress in social sciences (2002b). The
authoritative nature of the state has tended to be biased against a culture of debate and
dissent thus counter-productive for research. A five-fold increase in the number of social
science teachers during 1963-2001 has failed to yield any academic environment of debate
and ideas (Tahir 2005) not the least because there is an off-setting increase in population and
the number of educational institutions. Saigol concludes a critical monograph by underscoring
the key structural, ideological and institutional factors contributing to the poor state of social
sciences in Pakistan by arguing that:
The overwhelming ideological orientation of teachers across the disciplinary spectrum
revolves around religious and nationalist thinking. Most departments have courses in
the Ideology of Pakistan and some form of religious teaching. These subjects are
usually taught uncritically and from a single dominant viewpoint. Competing or
alternative viewpoints on the subject are not entertained and there is seldom any
debate over these issues such as what is the Ideology of Pakistan, who expounds it
and why. Even the suggestion that there may [be] competing versions of ideology or
alternative views about religion (say between the different sects and classes of people)
causes hostility and defensiveness. (Saigol in Inayatullah et al. 2005:477).
Saigol further elaborates:
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So deeply rooted are teachers and students in the hegemonic versions of state and
society that even the social sciences, which are tasked to produce alternative visions,
fail to do so. As a result one hardly finds any exponents of other schools of thought –
say Marxist, socialist, feminist, subaltern or post-modernist. Very few faculty members
are aware of other schools of thought so that there is seldom any ideological debate
that could potentially generate new ideas. The absence of debate and controversy,
discussion and contention, makes most of the universities very dull and insipid places
where received knowledge from old books is transmitted from generation to generation
in the same unchanging way. To some extent the problem is a consequence of a lack
of basic research facilities, in particular in the public sector institutions. (Ibid).
In Saigol’s view, commodification of the knowledge under the neo-liberal economic policies
and the increased authoritarianism of the state over time have resulted in disciplines such as
business and administration being preferred over the core disciplines such as history,
philosophy and political science which are critical to the understanding of the state, society
and culture. Saigol lists several key factors, responsible for the under development of social
sciences in Pakistan. These include; little monetary reward for teachers, high student-teacher
ratios, lack of academic facilities including libraries with up to date books, and a general lack
of community of researchers to reflect upon the research produced to generate the debate.
The scarcity of academic conferences and seminars results in a behaviour of ‘inwardness’
rather than sharing of the ideas, and cross disciplinary communication and interaction. She
highlights that the extent of training in research methods is extremely poor, inefficient and
outdated. Social scientists trained in these conditions find it hard to secure jobs and the better
paid jobs are biased towards foreign qualified social scientists: ‘locally qualified social
scientists even if they have greater insight and intelligence or first-hand knowledge of the local
institutions, fail to compete with foreign qualified individuals owing to the lack of respect for
the degrees awarded by Pakistani universities.’
Lastly, Saigol points towards the elitist nature of social sciences in the country by highlighting
that despite the majority of the population of the country being rural, the positions of prestige
and power in the knowledge system are dominated by the urban upper classes. This is
increasingly visible as one observes the uprising of the few private sector universities
providing better training to those who can afford it, albeit with some contrary evidences
contradicting this general trend, at least in development sector..
1. Higher Education Reforms
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Despite the historic persistence of unmet research needs of economy and society, the higher
education reforms beginning with the establishment of an autonomous HEC in early 2000
have been successful in transforming the overall landscape of higher education in Pakistan.
This transformation is evident from the manifold increase in the number of universities,
university enrolments, and the number of PhDs. To what extent these reforms are aware of
the poor state of social scceinces in the country, and attempt to overcome the historic bias
against social sciences, can be seen from the evidences presented in this section.
There is a steady rise in the overall enrolment in universities in this post reforms (post-2000)
period. The total number of students enrolled in universities rose from 276,274 in 2001-02 to
868,641 in 2009-10.7 A four-fold increase over just one decade exhibits a drastically increased
capacity of higher education system to absorb the influx of new students given the ongoing
demographic pressure.
One of the major thrust of these reforms has been on improving research at the universities
through several initiatives. Most important of these is the strengthening of the doctoral
research training at Pakistani universities which is reflected in rise in the number of PhDs
produced during this period. Over the 55 years between 1947 and 2002, a total of only 3,281
PhDs were produced by Pakistani universities across all disciplines. In the subsequent 10-
year period, about 5,000 PhDs have been produced, reflecting the transformation of
universities towards research-oriented institutions. This is illustrated in Figure 1 below.
Figure 1: Increase in PhD outputs during 1947-2002 and 2001-2012
7 Source: HEC, http://www.hec.gov.pk/Stats/Pages/Default.aspx
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Source: HEC8
Remarkably while the number of PhDs in social sciences over this decade has been equal to
those produced over the last 55 years, which in itself is an achievement, the radical rise in the
number of PhDs has mainly been in the non-social science disciplines. Figure 2 shows this
major focus of these reforms on the disciplines of science, technology and engineering,
implying that the arts, humanities and social sciences have not received sufficient attention.
While this has been justified by the technology driven economic growth through trained human
resources, the impact of personal backgrounds of the earlier leadership of HEC in the
disciplines of science and technology cannot be ignored.
Figure 2: Discipline wise breakdown of PhDs produced
Source: HEC Annual Report 2010-119
The relative neglect of social sciences in higher education reforms can be seen through the
number of national and international scholarships awarded across various disciplines under
these reforms. Several programmes were initiated to support PhD intake at Pakistani
universities, such as the ‘indigenous fellowships’ that started in 2000, aimed at supporting
5,000 PhDs at local universities in five different batches. As Table 1 demonstrates, out of
4,874 scholarships awarded for PhD at Pakistani universities, only 745 scholarships, i.e. 15
per cent of the total, were awarded in all disciplines of social sciences.
8 http://www.hec.gov.pk/Stats/Pages/Default.aspx
9 http://www.hec.gov.pk/MediaPublication/PublishingImages/Annual%20Report-2012%20in%20PDF/Annual%20Report-2012%20in%20PDF.html . Last accessed Feb 20, 2014.
348
665586
14 21
709
886
577434
852
103208
828892
0
225
450
675
900
1125
Agriculture &VeterinaryScience
Arts andHumanities
Biologicaland Medical
Science
BusinessEducation
Engineeringand
Technology
PhysicalSciences
SocialSciences
1947-2002 2003-2011
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Table 1: Discipline Wise Breakdown of the PhD Scholarships at Pakistani Universities
Source: HEC Annual Report 2010-11
This bias in the allocation of resources to social sciences is not confined to doctoral fellowships
at Pakistani universities only. Amongst all overseas PhD scholarships granted under reforms
until 2011, as Table 2 shows, the proportion of scholarships for social sciences is even lower
and less than 10 per cent of the total. Among the 2,529 scholarships awarded under this
program; 775 have completed the degrees by June 2011, out of which, only 63 are from social
sciences.
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Table 2: Discipline-Wise Breakdown of the Overseas PhD Scholarships
Country
Discipline
Engineerin
g &
Technology
Physical
Science
s
Biologica
l &
Medical
Sciences
Agricultur
e &
Veterinary
Sciences
Social
Science
s
Business
Educatio
n
Arts &
Humanitie
s Total
France 203 108 59 115 55 48 12 600
Netherland
s 42 65 23 51 22 16 3 222
Austria 65 188 40 23 17 13 0 346
Germany 135 126 56 46 28 5 1 397
New
Zealand 38 36 11 18 16 20 15 154
China 26 27 19 25 6 1 0 104
Sweden 76 73 27 16 0 0 1 193
Australia 4 0 9 12 14 5 1 44
Canada 2 2 0 2 1 0 0 7
United
Kingdom 34 35 49 24 57 12 9 220
USA 17 5 0 0 9 2 1 34
Norway 15 22 4 2 9 2 0 54
South
Korea 10 14 5 1 5 1 0 36
Italy 33 22 0 1 0 0 0 56
Thailand 31 8 2 7 10 4 0 62
Total 699 710 303 342 249 129 43 2529
15
Source: HEC Annual Report 2010-11
Alongside the obvious bias against social sciences in the HEC reforms, the overall increased
number of PhDs produced by the universities is also subject to criticism on the grounds of
quality. The drastic increase in the intake of research students without a matching increase in
the training capacities means that quality has been replaced by quantity.10
A similar bias is reflected in HEC’s “Distinguished National Professors” program to use the
services of the outstanding senior professors and scientists in the universities and R&D
organisations. Under this programme, a total of 40 distinguished professors were appointed
since 2004 and only three were from the disciplines of social sciences (HEC Annual Report
2010-11). There is also a low share of resources for social science research under HEC
funded research projects for the faculty members at universities. Out of the total 1,034
approved projects since the inception of the program, only 35 were approved for the disciplines
of social sciences (ibid.). The reasons for the low number of social science projects may
include low levels of applications from the social scientists which in itself is reflective of how
deep rooted the problem is.
The cumulative impact of the HEC reforms over the last 15 years can be summarised in the
trends in research outputs. Overall, these reforms have drastically increased academic
research outputs in the country. The annual research publications were only 816 in 2002 which
rose to 4,963 in 2010 – a six times increase in just eight years. The breakdown of these
research outputs by discipline, however presents a very disappointing picture of the
performance of social science faculties. Out of 4,963 research outputs, only 145 were
produced by the social scientists. In fact, the share of social science research publications in
overall research publications has fallen from 4.5 per cent of total publications in 2002 to only
2.9 per cent in 2010.
10 University Individual Interview 01.
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Table 3: Annual research outputs 2002-10
Year Total Publications Social Science
Publications
Share of Social Science
Publications
2010 4,963 145 2.9%
2008 3,425 62 1.8%
2007 2,836 80 2.8%
2006 1,765 50 2.8%
2005 1,316 54 4.1%
2004 1,044 45 4.3%
2003 948 47 4.9%
2002 816 37 4.5%
Sources: HEC11 for column 2; Arunachalam12 (undated); Column 3 is authors’ calculation
These statistics and the earlier section demonstrate the historic underdevelopment of social
sciences in Pakistan. The evidences presented here suggest that the overall human resource
capacity of research institutions is likely to remain under-developed in the near future unless
there is a drastic shift in the policies of HEC. With this broad understanding of social sciences
and the trends in higher education, we now look into the landscape of the institutions of policy
research in Pakistan.
F. The Landscape of Policy Research in Pakistan
Globally, the internal dynamics of the knowledge systems informing policymaking are not
widely studied and more so in the case of developing countries. Exploring these dynamics,
therefore, requires developing a baseline understanding of the field. By building on some of
the key analyses of the overall condition of research in Pakistan in general and of social
11 http://www.hec.gov.pk/Stats/Pages/Default.aspx 12 Based on Science Citation Index and Social Science Citation Index
17
science research in particular, SDPI13 landscaped the institutions engaged in conducting
research across major policy themes14 in 2012-13 (Naveed 2013a). This study highlighted
some important aspects of the political economy of policy research and its uptake in the
country (Wood 2013). Given that this study provided the context of this paper, this section
presents a brief overview of its key findings.
The historic concentration of political power and decision-making at the federal level had
implications for the evolution of the institutions of policy research within and outside the public
sector. These institutions were established largely in the capital given an easy access to both
the end-users and the donors of policy research. The devolution of policymaking from federal
to provincial levels in 2010 posed new challenges to the providers of research requiring
context specific analyses of policy issues. However, even after four years of increased
provincial autonomy in policymaking, the institutions of policy research continue to be
clustered in Islamabad. Although the number of institutions in Lahore is increasing now, and
a few are already located in Karachi, ironically, the provinces with the most complex policy
challenges, such as Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK), do not have any research
institution that can significantly provide policy analyses. This spatially skewed presence of
research institutions is also reflected in the overall policy analyses produced in the country,
which is thinly focused on the core issues of these two provinces. This is, in all probability,
also reflective of the lack of physical security in KPK and Balochistan, which marginalises the
scope of conducting primary research by the institutions located elsewhere in the country.
With the exception of a few areas such as scientific, technological, and strategic/security
research where there is a significant presence, (rather, dominance) of the public sector
research organisations, all other key fields covering social, political, economic and cultural
aspects of public policies are heavily dominated by non-government/private sector
organisations. The few existing public sector research institutions in these fields, by and large,
suffer from serious capacity constraints. This apparent ‘outsourcing of thinking’ by successive
governments limiting themselves to implement ideas generated externally, and the
postponement of investments in research capacities of the public sector, reflect the acute
problems that stem from the demand side of policy research. A gradual erosion of the
bureaucracies’ capacities and interests to engage with the evidence, alternative ideas and
arguments in making public choices was also documented (Ikram 2011; Wood 2013).
13 We were however advantaged as in 2012 as Wood and Naveed were commissioned by the UK Government’s Department for International Development (DFID) to conduct a landscaping study on the institutions of policy research in Pakistan. 14 These themes included: economics, health, agriculture and nutrition, gender and poverty, governance and conflict, education, and evaluation/impact assessment.
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While the field of policy research is dominated by non-government actors, public sector funds
for policy research are ironically limited only to public sector institutions that produce a limited
amount of analysis under the selected themes. Non-government institutions (hence the
overwhelming share of policy research) rely heavily upon international donors (Naveed
2013a). In contrast, owing to a host of reasons, international donors’ funds for policy research
are also predominantly restricted to non-government actors, at least in practice, demonstrating
a clear demarcation between the resource profile of public and private/non-government
institutions. Importantly, international donors’ funding for policy research is short-term and
projectised (project-specific) in nature, triggering disposable project arrangements, rather than
long-term capacity building of the institutions and actors (ibid.).
Another significant characteristic of this landscape of policy research is the invisibility of the
institutions of higher education. Currently, there are 153 HEC recognised universities/degree
awarding institutions in the country15 and only few of them, predominantly located in the private
sector, are actively engaged in research that informs policies. Education as a discipline
provides an interesting illustration of this point. There are at least 61
departments/campuses/institutes of education at various universities across the country
including several educational research centres within them, employing at least 159 PhDs and
more than 500 non PhDs mostly with MPhil degrees (Naveed 2013b). However, the
contribution of such a huge human resource base with the highest academic credentials to
policy research is rarely acknowledged by the policy makers.
The detailed thematic landscape of the institutions of policy research provided by this study
is summarised in Box 1.
Box 1: Theme-wise Overview of the Institutions of Policy Research in Pakistan
• The largest number of policy research organisations is engaged in conducting policy research
in the field of economics. These organisations are, however, largely clustered in Islamabad,
Lahore and Karachi. There are no organisations conducting economics
research in Balochistan or KPK.
• Research under the themes of agriculture, food security and nutrition, essentially of scientific
and technical nature, is dominated by public sector institutions including agricultural
universities. Contrary to this, the research directly evaluating policies is conducted mainly by a
few non-government organisations (NGOs).
• The research on health issues, particularly medical research, although seriously resource
deficient, is mainly steered by the Pakistan Medical Research Council with a strong presence
of Aga Khan University (AKU) in the private sector. The technical/scientific aspects of public
15 http://www.hec.gov.pk/ourinstitutes/pages/default.aspx
19
health are also addressed by a few organisations in the public sector. Very few of these
organisations, mainly in the non-government sector, work directly on health policies and health
systems.
• The research under the themes of poverty, gender and social policy is heavily dominated by
NGOs with the public sector unable to provide official poverty statistics for the last eight years.
While federal and provincial governments are struggling with their capacity to govern,
particularly in the devolved landscape, there are very few NGOs engaged in policy relevant
research on the issues of governance.
• Research under the theme of conflict and peace is dominated by public sector think tanks
focused primarily on strategic and international/regional issues. There are however, an
increasing number of non-government research institutions on this issue covering various
dynamics of domestic (non-international) conflict. Overall, the organisations working on this
theme are mainly concentrated in Islamabad.
• There are very few organisations specialising in issues related to education, which remains a
small part of the wider portfolio of these organisations. Most of the outputs are
quantitative/economic analysis and other key areas of educational research remain least
studied.
• The landscape of evaluation is largely individualized with ‘core group of experts’ hired
frequently as consultants, alongside the presence of a few Islamabad based organisations and
consulting firms.
Excerpt from Naveed (2013a)
This study also uncovered some of the subtleties of the political economy of policy research
and its uptake (Wood 2013). It observed that political instability inherently results in
undermining the evidence based decision making, favouring short-term policymaking, and
weakens the relationship between research and policy. It also identified a number of key
barriers to conducting policy research in the country.
With this broad context of the overall landscape of policy research, the dominance of think
tanks over this landscape, and the persistence of the weak state of social sciences in the
evolving higher education industry, the relationship between think tanks and universities in
Pakistan can be explored in more depth in the subsequent section.
G. Conceptualising Universities and Think Tanks in Pakistan
Understanding think tanks - universities relationships requires an appreciation of the
similarities and differences between the two groups of institutions which can help us identify
20
opportunities as well as structural constraints in strengthening these relationships. Numerous
factors ranging from the wider political economy to the immediate demand and supply
pressures shape institutions’ outlook and practices. Some elements of contrast and
convergence in the practices of the institutions and hence the scope for interaction can
however be traced by simply looking into their officially stated visions and missions. This
section discusses the roles the two groups of institutions are envisioned and mandated to
play, and identifies the between-group similarities and differences without undermining the in-
group diversity.
Think tanks in Pakistan demonstrate considerable diversity in their officially stated vision,
mission, objectives and specialisations. Their strikingly common feature is that they are
envisioned to bring about change in public policies through applied research and analysis and
proactive advocacy and lobbying. In fact it is a variable mix of research and advocacy which
determines the internal diversity within think tanks as some of them are more focused on
conducting research with limited advocacy while others are more known for networking,
communication and advocacy. This variability is also evident from their visions and mission
statements. The stated vision of country’s oldest independent think tank, SDPI established in
1992 is:
To be a centre of excellence on sustainable development policy research, capacity
development and advocacy in Pakistan.
The Mahbub ul Haq Human Development Centre, established in 1995, and which moved from
Islamabad to Lahore in 2011 states its core objective as a commitment to;
…organizing professional research in the area of human development and promoting
human development paradigm as a powerful tool for informing people-centered
development policy.
The Karachi based Social Policy Development Centre, established in 1995, defines its mission
as to:
…contribute to national economic and social development policies and programmes
to make them more accountable, pro-poor, engendered and equitable.
While these premier think tanks have broad visions of advancing sustainable, human and
social development, some have rather thematically specialised missions. For instance, the
mission of the Islamabad based democracy focused think tank, Jinnah Institute is defined as:
21
…to promote independent policy research and policy advocacy in Pakistan that
advances the cause of democratic institution-building, and strengthening state
capacity for delivery on policy goals.
Similarly, the vision statement of the health focused think tank Heartfile is as follows:
Our vision is a future in which the entire population of Pakistan has an equal
opportunity to attain the highest possible level of health and well-being.
The core objective behind the creation of think tanks is thus to bring about policy change in
their respective areas of specialisation whether broadly or narrowly defined. They struggle to
achieve these objectives not only through their own primary research but also through
secondary analysis and by generating public debate through dialogues, as well as by
networking with the key stakeholders. Sometimes they also engage themselves in capacity
building such as conducting a range of training courses as in the case of SDPI.
In contrast to think tanks, universities in the country are envisioned to perform wider roles
which by and large appear to be conceived to create knowledge based society and economy,
and to foster leadership. Their official statements suggest these roles are seen to be played
primarily through teaching although there is some focus upon research. As noted by Saigol
(in Inayatullah et al. 2005), there is also an added emphasis on identity formation and the
advancement of some aspects of nationalism within the stated visions of public sector
universities. University of the Punjab Lahore, for example, has its official vision statement as
follows:
….to be a lead public university in providing affordable educational opportunities to
develop scientific, socio-cultural, economic and political leadership, through learner
centred teaching and research, while strengthening our identity at national and
international level.
Similarly, the mission statement of the Sindh University Jamshoro demonstrates its primary
focus on teaching followed by the inculcation of identity and social values in the students.
To develop human resources by imparting quality education in all fields of science, arts
and technology and to develop a body of teacher and taught who would be aware and
proud of their culture and possess a high sense of honour and integrity and work with
selfless dedication, commitment and responsibility towards society to contribute to the
prosperity of people and peace and harmony in the country.
22
Balochistan University also retains the same emphasis on teaching and national identity
formation albeit with a focus on research.
To be a model university providing affordable, quality higher education opportunities
to develop the potentially rich human resource in Balochistan through knowledge
centred teaching and research while maintaining high levels of ethical and professional
standards and promoting national identity.
Generally, public sector universities seem to prioritise teaching over research, which is evident
in their self-conceptualisation. The mission statement of the federal institute, Quaid-i-Azam
University (QAU), which was initially established as a research university in 1967 appears to
be striking a balance between teaching, social harmony and applied research for economic
transformation:
Taking Pakistan forward by providing an affordable, high standard education to
students from all corners of the country, creating interprovincial harmony, providing
solutions through research relevant to the national needs, towards the transformation
of the country into a knowledge-based economy.
Islamabad based National University of Science and Technology (NUST) also envisions the
focus on research alongside teaching.
The National University of Science and Technology aims to emerge as a
comprehensive residential institution responsive to technological change, dedicated to
excellence and committed to international education and research needs of the
country. NUST will continue to champion a tradition of distinguished teaching, research
and service through evolving undergraduate, postgraduate and doctoral level
programmes of study in various disciplines in collaboration with renowned universities
inside the country and abroad.
Except for a handful of public universities, the emphasis appears to be on teaching and training
with research forming only a small part of their wider objectives. Some of the leading private
sector universities, however, place high emphasis upon research. The Lahore University of
Management Sciences (LUMS), for example, states its vision as:
To become an internationally acclaimed research university that serves society
through excellence in education and research.
Its mission statement further elaborates its emphasis upon conducting research.
23
LUMS aspires to achieve excellence and national and international leadership through
unparalleled teaching and research, holistic undergraduate education, and civic
engagement to serve the critical needs of society. It seeks to accomplish this mission
as a unified institution with cutting-edge research, a modern and rigorous curriculum
and socially responsible outreach to the nation and region.
The emphasis upon research is clearly articulated in the vision and mission statements of both
NUST and LUMS. It is important to note that all the universities in the private sector are not
envisioned to be research entities. Mohammad Ali Jinnah University, Islamabad for example
states its mission as broad as:
Mohammad Ali Jinnah University, Islamabad, through the pursuit of excellence in an
ethical environment, is committed to providing to a diverse student population the
intellectual and technological tools necessary to meet the future challenges.
Reference to the vision and mission statements of both groups of institutions establishes that
think tanks are envisioned to engage with policy not only through applied research and
analysis but also by proactively advocating for the uptake of their research and a constant
networking with key stakeholders. In contrast, universities are conceived to pursue broad
objectives of transforming the economy and society primarily through teaching and training.
Research makes a small component of their broad visions and missions. Most importantly,
there is no explicit relevance of the universities’ research with immediate policy needs. This
broad demarcation between the respective purposes of creation of the two groups of
institutions necessitates looking into their institutional characteristics before exploring their
relational dynamics at length. This aims to provide a deeper understanding of the respective
strengths and weaknesses of the two groups of institutions in relation to engaging with policy
research, creating incentives and disincentives for them to collaborate with each other.
1. Institutional Characteristics
Universities
In line with their vision and mission statements, most universities in Pakistan have evolved
primarily as teaching places with limited engagement with research. This national trend
perhaps partly corroborates with the global educational policies in recent decades. Driven by
the marginal (economic) returns to education, the neoliberal policies towards education,
supported greater investment into basic education over the last three decades almost at the
neglect of higher education (Bond and Tickly 2012). Consequently, in the global south, the
‘golden era’ of the universities as centres of excellence for teaching as well as research, if and
24
where it existed, faded into merely teaching regimes with compromised capacities to generate
disciplinary, academic and applied knowledge. Universities in Pakistan particularly in relation
to social sciences are also reflective of these global trends despite a decade and half of higher
educational reforms.
The lack of indigenous knowledge creation, whether theoretical or empirical, results in the
disciplinary training that does not necessarily and directly speak to the local contexts and
realities. As a consequence, those trained in such contexts generally lack the start-up
credentials and skills to engage with policy analysis unless they receive further and rigorous
on-the-job training.16 There is surely some divergence from this general norm particularly in
the case of research oriented few universities offering decent quality training in research which
is also reflected in their vision and mission statements.17 Some of these universities also
engage proactively with policy processes by providing relevant analysis, from time to time.
This however, indicates a deeply problematic historic trend of education being implicated in
social reproduction as these private schools cater largely to the educational needs of the elite.
While the overwhelming majority of those who attend universities receive poor quality training,
given the overall weak state of the social sciences, the critical and analytical skills required for
policy analysis and hence the positions of power are accessible to small elite, albeit with some
exceptions.
As demonstrated in the previous section, higher education reforms have significantly
increased the number of public and private universities and are gradually increasing the
number of faculty members with PhD degrees and the number of research students enrolled.
Nonetheless, the quality of academic research and training at most of the universities in the
country is criticised by the respondents for remaining weak. Despite the gradual increase in
the number of papers published by universities, the overall impact of the strategic investments
under these reforms on the landscape of policy research is yet to alter the previous trends
perhaps because building research capacities is a long-term and painstaking process and
requires a range of accompanying policies.
There are numerous factors mediating universities’ engagement with policy process, including
an overall weak research. Although universities are restructuring their policies to promote
research, they are less likely to develop the incentive structures for their faculties’ engagement
in policy processes. Academic careers even in the post-reforms and restructuring context are,
and will be, driven by the number of papers published in the peer reviewed journals not
16 Think Tank Interviews 01, 02, 11 17 Think Tank Individual Interview 02
25
necessarily explicitly linked to policy needs18. The outputs of policy analysis which is usually
in the form of reports, policy briefs, and direct contributions to policy documents are rarely
considered equivalent to the peer-reviewed academic publications, hence do not serve the
interest of the academics.
Overall, universities lack formal mechanisms to appreciate and encourage their faculties
providing the analysis that directly informs policies unless it is published in peer reviewed
journals. They only value the ‘impact factor’ without any regard for the direct ‘impact’ on
society. There are instead disincentives for those academics who spend their time in
conducting policy research which does not count in their career development. At the same
time, the formats of academic research, the peer-reviewed papers and outputs, are known to
be stylistically inaccessible for policy makers, and universities do not have the tradition of
producing simple, short and comprehensible policy briefs out of their academic papers.19
Consequently, their contribution to policymaking, even when their academic research is
relevant to policies, is marginalised by design.
Additionally, the field of policy research requires a high level of inter-disciplinarity that sharply
contrasts with the ways academics in Pakistan are traditionally organised along the narrow
lines of disciplines.20 Engaging with thematically categorised policy issues requires surpassing
disciplinary boundaries, demanding additional time and efforts to acquire new skills. The
competing claims over the time of academics work as the major barrier in their engagement
with policy research since their core job (i.e., teaching and associated administration) does
not let them engage with research.21 There are several universities where teachers are
teaching as many as four courses per semester, leaving no space, in terms of energy or time,
for conducting research.
Universities are, by and large, big organisations with complex bureaucratic structures and
huge inertia. Taking new initiatives and introducing change in their practices is almost always
subject to cumbersome processes which conflict with the short time frames governing policy
processes. More importantly, engaging with policy research requires skills and aptitude to
reach out to the diverse group of stakeholders, including politicians, bureaucrats, and officials
at donor agencies, who themselves are less likely to proactively approach academics. In
practice, academics in Pakistan and perhaps elsewhere too have a general tendency of ‘being
18 University Individual Interviews 01, 06 19 Think Tank Individual Interviews 03, 05 20 HEC Executive Director, Sep 21, 2012 21 University Individual Interview 12
26
sought’ by others rather than ‘reaching out’ to the relevant stakeholders, consequently the
prospects for their engagement in public decision-making are minimised.
Policy research anywhere is a political activity and involves engagement with the power
structures in one way or another. The historic de-politicization and bureaucratisation of the
universities under the successive military rules, as highlighted by Inayatullah et al. (2005), and
Zaidi (2002), have promoted an apolitical, risk-averse and somewhat pro-government
behaviour amongst academics who avoid controversies. Political processes around policy
research thus conflict with the professional values held by academics and therefore restrict
the scope for their engagement with these processes.22
Policy research in the country is predominantly funded by international donors who generally
have a preference for the civil society organisations to avoid procedural complications
(Naveed 2013a). In contrast, most of the universities function within the public sector which
rarely engages in commissioning policy research. The external donors are generally not the
preferred funding source by public sector universities unless it is channelized through public
sector arrangements (i.e. budgetary support, etc.).23 Linked to the funding modalities is the
agenda of policy research, which is accused of being largely driven by international donors
(Zaidi 2002; Wood 2013) and potentially compromises the academic independence of
research providers thus discourages universities to tap these resources. Funding regimes thus
pose obvious constraints for the university based academics to engage in policy research.
This is exacerbated by the lack of incentive mechanisms for university faculties for raising
research grants through competitive bidding, apart from probably those under the recently
developed Tenure Track System under which career progression is conditional to research
outputs.
Think tanks
We have seen that in contrast to universities, think tanks’ official visions, missions and
mandates have nuanced articulation of engaging with policy processes. In many instances,
they have well-defined thematic priorities within which they locate their activities. Within these
broadly defined themes, they constantly restructure their programmes in order to provide
timely responses to the challenges raised by policy needs. The research careers of think tanks
are therefore, horizontal, diverse and adaptable rather than vertical and fixed. Such high
22 University Individual Interview 11 23 University Individual Interview 01, 03
27
degree of institutional flexibility allows them to provide the real time analysis of the varied
issues emerging out of policy needs.24
Most think tanks in Pakistan are small organisations operating within the non-government
sector and have flexible organisational arrangements. They have a strong tendency of
devolved decision-making which enhances the procedural flexibility they enjoy in their day-to-
day operations. However, helpful such organisational elasticity is in enabling think tanks to
fulfil their role as somewhat real-time analysts, it has bearings for their long-term human
resource capacity development. The vertical growth of skills and expertise in any particular
area are traded off with the horizontal mobility of researchers across various themes which
are determined by the opportunities offered by the funding regimes.25 This flexibility also has
bearings on the quality of research produced by think tanks.
Due to the fluidity of thematic priorities, think tanks research is often accused of lacking
methodological and theoretical rigour, which is gained over time and through specialisation
and selectivity. The pressure by the ‘real time’ demands of policymaking leaves little time for
thinking deeply, designing rigorously, and improving the outputs constantly.
Another distinguishing feature of think tanks is their extensive engagement with key
stakeholders through rigorous advocacy, dissemination and outreach arrangements. Their
research formats such as position papers, research reports and policy briefs are written to be
accessible to the non-technical audiences. Many think tanks have adopted innovative means
to extend the outreach of their research and analysis by using social and mainstream media,
web-based television, and regular public events. With a variable mix of research-advocacy,
think tanks are frequently seemingly caught up in a difficulty to determine the optimum
combination of these two core elements required for policy change. Overemphasis upon
advocacy compromises research and focusing only on research defeats the very purpose
think tanks conduct research, i.e., to change policies.
With the exception of a few public sector organisations, think tanks are independent, non-
government and autonomous entities playing the role of watchdog by offering critical inputs
and analyses. Their operational independence from the national bureaucracies and political
influence grants them a leverage to provide critical perspectives, at times, even on the issues
barred from public debate for being ‘sensitive’. Their autonomy and officially non-partisan
nature thus help them generate constructive discourse on the issues pertinent to development,
social justice and democracy. However, to echo the earlier point made about the limitations
24 Think Tank - Individual Interview 01 25 Think Tank Individual Interview 11
28
on think tanks due to a dependence on funding from donors, their strict reliance on external
financial resources reportedly puts limits on their autonomy.26
Thus while think tanks often succeed in negotiating some autonomy in their research, their
research agendas are generally considered to be influenced by international development
agendas rather than independent analysis of the issues of national priorities (Wood 2013).
Such positioning of think tanks in relation to the commissioners of research has implications
for their interaction with the consumers of policy research, exacerbated by the lack of
participation of the latter (public policymakers) in setting up these agendas. Instead, one finds
a policy ‘monologue’ in the sense that both think tanks and commissioners of research co-
construct the problems to be analysed by think tanks and presented to the policy makers for
‘policy change’.27 This subtle disconnect between consumers and suppliers of policy research
in determining research agendas impacts an effective uptake of the analyses into policies.
Such disjunction is further aggravated by the way policymaking in the country, as a chaotic
process, often understates the need for evidence (ibid.). Nonetheless some think tanks report
to have protected their autonomy by turning down funding opportunities falling outside their
respective mandates and/or producing research on certain issues without donor support.28
Despite this disjuncture between suppliers and consumers of policy research, and persistent
criticism over donors’ influence upon their autonomy, think tanks retain their strong influence
on policies as they provide the analysis timely and adopt rigorous advocacy tools.
Summary of the Internal Characteristics of Universities and Think Tanks
It is useful to recap the arguments developed above to make immediate reference to in the
subsequent sections of this paper. Table 4 presents the summary of the institutional
characteristics of the two groups of institutions.
Table 4: Summary of the Institutional Dynamics of Think Tanks and Universities
Indicators Universities Think tanks
Aims/Mission of the organisation Broad and includes
research not necessarily
linked to policies
Focused on policy
research often clearly
defining thematic
priorities
26 Think Tank Individual Interview 03. 27 Think Tank Individual Interview 01. 28 Think Tank Individual Interviews 01, 02, 04, 11
29
Human resource capacity (PhDs,
other professionally qualified staff)
High Low
Sources of funding Public funds Often international
partners
Typology of funds available Long-term and secure Unpredictable, restricted
Endowment Yes Usually no or low
Unconditional grants Yes Rarely
External financial support Not necessarily Important
External technical support Sometimes through
external partnerships
Usually
Advocacy and networking (media,
public, civil society engagement)
No Always and rigorously
Activities other than policy research –
consulting?
Rarely and individualised Always –
institutionalised form of
consulting
Career of the organization Structured, vertical,
changes associated with
the expertise of staff
primarily
Adaptable, horizontal
and to some extent
driven by funding regime
Quality of research Supposed to be rigorously
monitored through peer
review process
Monitored often
internally and by the
commissioners of
research
30
Performance measurement Peer review, ‘impact
factor’,
Policy influence, review
by commissioners of
research, repeat
business, media
citations
Theoretical knowledge Strongly expected Often lacking theoretical
orientation
Applied knowledge Less likely Always
Levels of inter-disciplinarity Often narrowly
constrained by
disciplinary boundaries
Highly interdisciplinary
Degree of influence in policymaking Low High
Long-term capacity building (of staff) High through doctoral
programmes
Primarily through on-the-
job training but rarely
through further formal
qualifications.
Adaptability to the emerging policy
needs
Low or slow High
Real-time utility Low High
Research agenda Independent and driven
primarily by the individual
academics’ research
interests pursuing long
term scholarship
The broad agenda is
determined
independently, however
with short term research
projects contingent upon
funding
Research provision Supply-driven Demand-driven
31
Output formats Peer reviewed books and
journal articles
Policy briefs,
position/white/working
papers, reports, audio-
visual products
Individuals Usually long term careers Usually high turn over
Source: Authors (based on the discussion on institutional dynamics in the preceding
section).
It is fairly obvious that despite a shared goal of contributing towards knowledge based
decision-making, both think tanks and universities have distinct visions and institutional
characteristics, and follow different career trajectories. However, their overlapping goals of
informing policies provide a basis for interaction between them. These insights into their
institutional characteristics enable us to understand their mutual relationships closely. They
inform the conceptual framework developed in the accompanying Synthesis Paper29 which in
turn helps us understand the relationship between think tanks and universities as presented
in the subsequent sections of this paper.
2. Relationships and Underlying Motivations
Given the fundamental differences in their organisational structures and mandates, it is not
surprising to find that the formal institutional collaborations between think tanks and
universities are rare. Respondents across the board acknowledge that the two groups are
‘living in their own silos’.30 There are nonetheless certain identifiable patterns in the ways two
groups of institutions interact with each other. This section discusses these general patterns
highlighting some of the key drivers of these interactions whilst also identifying
incentives/disincentives for both think tanks and universities underlying these interactions.
The most visible formal collaboration is the presence of senior academics along with key policy
actors and politicians at the Advisory/Governing Boards of think tanks. On one hand, this gives
strategic oversight on think tanks’ priorities and practices, and on the other, it lends an element
of academic credibility to their research agendas. There is also an increasing trend to include
think tanks’ representatives in universities’ Boards of Studies/Syndicate/Senate to reflect that
29 ‘Protecting the Space for Policy Research: Comparing Think Tanks and Universities in South Asia’, by Geof
Wood. 30 Think Tank Individual Interview 02.
32
universities are trying to bridge research-policy gap and are extending cooperation towards
civil society.
There are very few instances of institutionally arranged research collaboration between think
tanks and universities. Such an absence of formal research collaborations nonetheless does
not mean there is no interaction between the researchers at think tanks and universities, at
all. The overall scarcity of human resources, appropriately skilled in research, brings these
institutions closer to each other. The majority of think tanks struggle to attract experienced
researchers given the diverse needs of the projects they undertake on a recurring basis.31 The
short term nature of their research projects discourages them from long term in-house capacity
building primarily on the grounds of economic viability (Wood 2013, Naveed 2013a). These
collaborations, by and large, are informal and individualized and cover a wide range of
activities such as research projects, consultancies, policy advocacy/dissemination events and
teaching and training. The academic experts permanently employed elsewhere are thus a
convenient resource base to draw from for an unconstrained optimization of resources by
bridging this obvious skill gap.
By and large universities also face similar human resource challenges. With the recent
expansion of the higher education sector, the excessive demand for appropriately qualified
faculty members exceeding their supply is often met by engaging mid-career level staff
members of think tanks with sufficient research experience and academic training. The influx
of new PhDs from foreign and national universities resulting from HEC reforms have started
joining the permanent faculties at universities, however, the need for visiting faculty is likely to
persist for a long period. Think tanks’ experts, given their hands on experience on policy
issues, are engaged by the universities to teach as well as evaluate theses and dissertations
produced by research students (the authors of this paper, while being think tank researchers,
have had a chance to experience such engagements first hand).
For think tanks, collaborating with university academics provides an opportunity to improve
the quality of their research designs, refine instruments, and enhance the richness of data
generated and analysis produced.32 Engaging academics often as consultants, and at times
in the advisory panels and review committees, widens the scope of research as it links the
otherwise empirically driven policy problem solving with broader theoretical debates. While
policy research in Pakistan does not necessarily require peer-reviewed journal publications,
think tank researchers across the board aspire to raise their academic profiles through
academic publications. Collaboration with university faculties increases the chances of their
31 Think Tanks Individual Interviews 01, 02, 03, 05,06, 11. 32 Think Tanks Individual Interview 07.
33
joint academic publications adding to the recognition of their work beyond their own immediate
circles of influence, i.e., donors and policy makers. The launch of the peer-reviewed Journal
of Social and Policy Sciences by the Islamabad based think tank Institute of Social and Policy
Sciences in 2010 reflects such aspirations and is an example of think tank – university
interaction since the editors and contributors to the journal come from both groups.
Additionally, policy research that meets some academic standards has greater opportunities
for dissemination particularly to the learners’ communities, students and teaching staffs at the
universities33. For some policy researchers, such opportunities are also seen instrumental in
exporting ‘pragmatic’ research agendas into academic teaching and theoretical research.
Capacity building is another area where interaction takes place across the two groups of
institutions. In addition to improving the quality of research outputs, engaging experienced
university individuals, whether on research projects or on structured training events, provides
opportunities to upgrade the methodological skills of the junior and mid-career researchers at
think tanks. In fact SDPI routinely invites university academics to deliver training on research
methodology for its in-house researchers alongside organising structured training courses for
the researchers outside the institute under its training centre.
Such individualised arrangements with university based faculties for research or training, at
times, provide think tanks a chance to identify the suitably skilled young/mid-career university
faculties with doctoral degrees to subsequently offer permanent positions at think tanks.34
Similarly, with their understanding of the local context, culture, language and traditions,
students at local universities across various parts of the country are often engaged by think
tanks to gather quantitative and qualitative data from the research sites given think tanks’
geographically skewed presence.
As the data demonstrates, universities as institutions generally tend to see low incentives for
collaborating with think tanks since most of the benefits of collaborative engagements favour
individual academics. Collaborating on think tanks led projects offers university academics
additional income, recognition outside universities, and policy influence. For universities, lack
of funds available for primary research and the close networking of think tanks with
international donors create some institutional incentives for collaboration although not pursued
widely. Such collaborations also favour think tanks whose chances of winning research grants
increase by the inclusion of reputed academics and/or their institutions in their bids.35 Despite
this, only eight per cent of the research projects undertaken by think tanks that were
33 Think Tanks Individual Interviews 01, 02. 34 Think Tanks Individual Interview 01. 35 Think Tanks Individual Interview 08.
34
interviewed have some academics on board with even lesser proportion of institutional
collaborations.
Think tanks across the country have developed sophisticated mechanisms and tools to
disseminate their research to a wide range of stakeholders. These mechanisms include
annual conferences, weekly seminars, roundtables, special lectures, web-based TV
channels, 36 newsletters and social media. Collaborating with think tanks thus provides
university based academics excellent opportunities to propagate their ideas at a wider level
which are otherwise shared with limited academic fraternities through academic publications
or rarely organised academic conferences and seminars. SDPI’s case study demonstrates
that over the last decade, one-third of the panellists of its annual Sustainable Development
Conference (SDC) have been associated with universities.
Alongside several incentives, there are certain factors discouraging collaborations between
think tanks and universities. The extent to which the faculty members at universities with
advanced disciplinary training can offer skills exactly required by think tanks appears to be
fairly limited. With certain exceptions, university faculties are rarely exposed to policy research
and hence lack particular analytical skills beyond their disciplinary training. The academics
equally skilled in academic and applied analysis and engaged in policy processes are often
reported to be overly committed to teaching, research and policy analysis sometimes to the
extent of compromising the quality of their outputs. Some are also moving out of universities
and setting up their own think tanks, at times, retaining their teaching positions at universities.
From the perspectives of universities, there are serious supply side constraints faced by the
academics as their core jobs of teaching and conducting academic research are highly
demanding leaving no time for engagement outside their campuses.
The lack of well-developed networks of knowledge communities such as the
disciplinary/thematic/professional associations bringing together experts and stakeholders
pursuing similar interests across institutional divisions further constrains the scope for joint
initiatives. In the absence of such networks, the costs of establishing initial contacts for
collaborations are significantly high and involve a level of uncertainty.37 Consequently, most
of the collaborations remain limited in number, and informal, individualized and personalized
in contrast to more ones at the institutional level.
Academics inherently pursue long-term scholarships, which is in contrast with the short-term
projectised mode of policy research.38 There is thus a different ‘sense of time’ prevailing
36 Such as Sustainable Development TV of the SDPI. 37 Think Tanks Individual Interview s01, 07, University Individual Interview 13. 38 Think Tanks Individual Interview 09.
35
across the two groups of institutions. Most importantly, there is an evident divergence in the
career goals of the experts based at the two groups of institutions. Think tanks’ research is
driven by the desire for creating a direct ‘impact’ on society by influencing public policies. The
academics pursue this indirectly through achieving the higher ‘impact factor’ by publishing in
high ranked peer-reviewed journals. Core interests of the academics are thus least served by
their engagement in policy research as the outputs are not given the equivalence of the peer
reviewed journal papers. The direct impact on public policies, by and large, falls outside the
ambition of universities hence partnerships with think tanks are rarely valued.
Another important barrier in collaboration between think tanks and universities is that both
institutions fall on the opposite ends of the institutional flexibility scale. Universities being large
establishments operate under well-defined bureaucratic procedures and structures, and
involve cumbersome processes of approvals that slow down any initiative. Think tanks on the
other hand demonstrate a great deal of procedural flexibility and are quick in making decisions
and taking initiatives. The very modus operandi of the two groups of institutions, therefore,
poses challenges in undertaking and sustaining joint initiatives. As reported by several think
tanks, many initiatives to collaborate do not go beyond signing a Memorandum of
Understanding with various universities primarily due to procedural mismatches. Moreover,
with the exception of a few, most universities operate within the public sector under the ambit
of government rules and procedures, and ‘institutional rigidities’, and think tanks are
predominantly NGOs. Such organisational differences, given the less-than-ideal context of
public-private partnership in the country, limit the prospects of collaborations between the two
and tremendous efforts would be required to break away from the norm.
By reading through university based respondents’ interviews, one comes across a sense of
their engagement with the ‘higher end’ of theoretical and disciplinary knowledge production in
contrast to the ‘lower end’ knowledge of policy problem solving. These perceptions create
some sort of institutional hierarchy discouraging universities’ interaction with think tanks. The
overall impression of the weak quality of research produced by think tanks also exacerbates
such perceptions. As the data suggests, think tanks are rather perceived by many in the
academia as Non-Government Organizations (NGOs)39 driven by donors, not something of
equal academic and analytical standing to work together with a sense of reciprocity.
Lastly, it was observed that influencing public policies even on the basis of research and
evidence is inherently a political process involving lobbying and networking with political actors
and taking certain positions on policy issues. Think tanks have learnt how to advance their
39 University Individual Interview 14.
36
objectives through understanding and engaging with the political economy of policymaking,
and are immune to political pressures. Academia, however, continues to remain de-politicised,
demonstrating risk-averse behaviour, and generally avoiding controversies.
Box 2: Agglomeration of Research Institutions in Lahore
There is an evident agglomeration of policy relevant research providers in Lahore given the presence
of reputed private sector universities employing some renowned academics, mostly economists,
offering rigorous training. Engagement of these universities with policy processes is also evidence of
the changes taking place in bureaucracies and policy makers, at least in Punjab. Private sector
universities such as LUMS, Lahore School of Economics (LSE), and Beaconhouse National University
(BNU) have developed their own policy research centres which showcase the outputs of policy research
projects undertaken by their teaching faculties and research staffs. These research centres have a
varying mix of teaching and policy research engagements. Centre for Research in Economics and
Business essentially relies upon the teaching faculties at the LSE. Development Policy Research
Centre, which has been through various phases of its activism, engages LUMS’ teaching faculty
alongside full-time researchers. Institute of Public Policy at the BNU has dedicated policy researchers
without or minimal teaching roles.
Lahore’s policy knowledge system demonstrates new trends as some ‘star academics’ with academic
and policy recognition primarily based at universities in Pakistan and abroad are setting up new think
tanks outside universities while retaining their faculty positions at their respective universities. The
Centre for Economic Research in Pakistan (CERP) conducts primary research projects to produce
theoretical and empirical analysis of international quality at the same time offering policy advice. CERP
is a joint venture of the academics based at leading US universities such as Harvard, Princeton and
Pamona, UK’s LSE, and Lahore-based LUMS. It serves as a platform for bringing together academics
at international universities driven by the possibility of publishing in high impact factor journals and
sometimes involving universities in Lahore, international donors and provincial policy makers. Such
think tanks are breaking away from the problematics of typical think tanks and universities in providing
policy research with theoretical and methodological rigor. Faculty members from LUMS and LSE
collaborate with CERP whilst also providing young researchers with employment at CERP. The Institute
for Development and Economic Alternatives (IDEAS) is another recently established think tank with
somewhat similar arrangements albeit with stronger focus on policy research. These initiatives illustrate
the central role played by a few academics who break away from the traditional character of university
teachers and proactively engage with policy processes and collaborate with the relevant stakeholders.
3. How does funding shape these relationships?
Conditions associated with funding universally shape research agendas. Funding regulates
the interaction not only between commissioners and providers of research but also amongst
37
research providers themselves. Overall, the scarcity of financial resources allocated for policy
research in both public and the non-government sector is reflected in the fewer number of
organisations engaged in policy research as compared to the amount of analyses required for
addressing the complex questions raised by policy needs at the federal and provincial levels.40
Data gathered for this study demonstrate the arrangements to fund policy research in Pakistan
clearly create and promote separation between the two groups of institutions. Except for a few
in the public sector, think tanks are rarely funded from public resources. In contrast,
universities’ research is mainly funded through public resources as well as by the funds they
generate by charging their students a fee. International aid to the higher education sector,
multilateral and bilateral, is primarily channelized through public sector disbursement
arrangements, mainly through HEC. Those in the public sector follow public sector financial
rules and all universities including private ones have to adhere to the financial regulations
promulgated by HEC. Segregation of funding sources combined with the organisational
differences and the overall low culture of public-private partnerships collectively minimize the
prospects of collaboration between think tanks and universities.
Funding architecture blocks [collaboration] because public sector universities have to
conform to the government funding framework. It is easy for think tanks to get
international funding but very difficult for a public sector university. There is also the
question of the ownership of research; university would not like to give the rights of
that dataset to donor.41
Developing institutional trust, mutual respect and reciprocity are long-term agendas. Project
based funding of policy research conditional to deliverables in a short time frame instead of a
long term programme support rarely encourages research providers to develop long term
institutional linkages and formal collaborations. Such funding regimes tend to create
somewhat unsustainable project arrangements that do not help in developing any meaningful
interaction with universities given the extent of bureaucratic procedures involved. The acute
dependence of think tanks on short term assignments and the resulting financial vulnerability
also contrast with the research interests of university based academics who prefer pursuing
long term scholarship.
Moreover, the agendas of policy research are often narrowly defined by funding regimes
which, on one hand, leave less space for any meaningful interactions across institutions, and
on the other hand, create apprehensions amongst those who tend to develop the agenda of
40 Highlighted in almost all Think Tank Interviews. 41 University individual interview 01.
38
their research rather independently. Trends in the priorities of policy research funding over
time are seen representing changing priorities of international development agendas rather
than reflecting national policy needs.42 Such perceptions further widen the gap between the
communities of academic and policy researchers.
The relatively unconditional and sustained funding for think tanks’ long-term research
programmes addresses some of the structural constraints in collaborative engagement with
universities. In Pakistan, both SDPI and Social Policy Development Centre (SPDC) have
benefitted from IDRC led programme support under the Think Tank Initiative for the last four
years (2010-14). This increased financial autonomy can be seen improving these institutions’
overall research outputs as well as their outreach and contribution to policymaking. It has
helped SDPI in initiating and funding research projects independently particularly in the areas
which were highly policy relevant but external donors were reluctant to support them, such as
energy governance, multidimensional poverty measurement, and food policy. It has helped
think tanks overcome, to some extent, the perceptions about them being donor driven thus
increasing their acceptability in policy circles and recognition in the academic community.
However, given a number of structural constraints, increased financial autonomy of think
tanks, per say, does not necessarily promote their collaboration with universities. We rather
observe an inherent contradiction between think tanks’ goals of intellectual independence and
collaboration with universities.
The first step to break out of the stereotypic status of being donor driven is to build long term
in-house capacity instead of relying upon the external resources which decreases the
prospects for academic collaborations. Similarly, the increased resources for research
available to universities are also resulting in the emergence of university based policy research
centres albeit at the stage of infancy in most cases.
The research funds offered by HEC tend to support universities and public sector research
organisations while ignoring the majority of think tanks that are non-government organisations.
There are nonetheless certain departures from the funding regimes which create separation
between think tanks and universities. The Pakistan Strategy Support Programme (PSSP),
which channelizes the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) grants
through the Planning Commission, is one major example as researchers at think tanks and
universities both are funded from the same source thus brought together to compete with each
other and interact closely in the process of award and dissemination. Nonetheless PSSP is
also reported to have privileged universities since it makes grants to individual researchers
42 Think tank individual interview 07.
39
and think tanks prefer institutional grants. Overall, the project based funding, when open to
both groups of institutions, encourages competition rather than collaboration. Besides, there
are practical difficulties in collaborative research as it multiplies the channels of
communication whereas donors prefer strong line management, compliance with procedures,
and frequent reporting blurring the responsibility between the multiple actors involved.
Given the distinct visions, missions, and organisational structures, only funding modalities that
exclusively support collaborative research projects between think tanks and universities can
bring the two groups of institutions together.
If the funding is given on the condition that universities and think tanks will collaborate
with each other, then collaboration can increase. International funding mainly goes to
think tanks so they do not feel the need to collaborate with universities. They get their
research done even by the average research staff they have instead of looking out for
expertise. Collaboration will happen only if international funding requires it.43
There is another aspect of foreign aid that distorts incentive structures for best graduates to
pursue research careers. Over the last decade, there has been an unprecedented increase in
the number and size of international NGOs and donor agencies working in the country. They
have attracted well trained human resources at all levels by offering them incentives much
higher than what research institutions and universities could offer. Consequently, research
institutions struggle to find and retain young staff with sufficient training and skills.
Simultaneously, the aid is also accused of ‘importing’ experts from abroad in the areas and at
the levels where there is sufficiently demonstrated indigenous expertise.
These international institutions have come in and have spoiled young researchers by
paying them very high salaries at very young age. They are not independent researchers
yet and have become unaffordable for us. If we bring them in we cannot trust them with
anything as they are not independent researchers. We cannot leave them with anything
we have to guide them. Still their salary rate is high and we have limited resources. This
is what international agencies are doing to us which is not a good thing for us and policy
analysis in Pakistan. The other thing is that they bring in experts from outside who know
little about Pakistan. This is double jeopardy for us.44
4. Case Studies
43 University Individual Interview 03. 44 Think tank individual interview 04.
40
We now turn to elaborate our analysis presented so far through four detailed case studies.
This section presents the cases of institutions – think tanks and universities – particularly
highlighting their engagement with the issues of policy research and their interaction with
others, demonstrating the instances of convergence, collaboration and cooperation between
them. These cases were selected on the grounds of their relevance to the questions explored
in this paper.
Case 1: Pakistan Institute of Development Economics: Evolution as a think tank and its
transition into a university45
Pakistan Institute of Development Economics (PIDE) emerged out of the need for planning to
channelize foreign aid, and on the “donors’ request to provide credible information about
projects and plans to be funded”. The Government of Pakistan established a Planning Board
in 1953 to develop the First Five Year Plan and sought the help of Ford Foundation for
technical capacity building. Ford Foundation adopted a two pronged strategy by: a) involving
external experts to overcome the immediate lack of expertise, and; b) gradually developing
the indigenous capacity for research and scholarship with a degree of autonomy from the
government. Foreign advisors, including the Harvard Advisory Group were deputed to advise
the central government in Karachi and provincial governments in Lahore and Dhaka.
International experts were deputed at the newly-established Institute of Development
Economics (IDE) to evolve indigenous capacities. Some of the globally renowned economists
such as Gunnar Myrdal, E.A.G. Robinson, Gustav Ranis and Paul Streeten have been
associated with the institute. During its early phase, the institute also received a significant
grant from the Aga Khan Foundation and more substantial support from USAID and the World
Bank.
The institute initiated a quarterly journal, The Pakistan Development Review, in 1961 with
Gustav Ranis as its first editor, who was also the Joint Director of the institute at that time. The
journal continues making theoretical and empirical contributions to the areas of economics
and social sciences. In 1964, the leadership of the institute was handed over to a Pakistani
economist, Professor Nurul Islam of Dhaka University, and it was renamed the Pakistan
Institute of Development Economics (PIDE).
It was subsequently given under the administrative control of the Planning and Development
Division in order to develop better linkages with and the ownership of the government.
45 Institutional history of PIDE is extracted from Naseem, S. M. 2008. PIDE – from a Think Tank to
University: A Brief History. Islamabad: Pakistan Institute of Development Economics.
41
During this early phase, Ford Foundation sent 26 people on training, mainly to the US, and
more than half received PhDs. Most of these trainees came from East Pakistan. West Pakistan
had weaker research capacities, which were elaborated after the head office moved to Dhaka
in 1970. The East Pakistani staff preferred academic and research options whereas the West
Pakistani staff took up positions in the international financial and development organisations.
West Pakistanis dominated the Planning Commission and East Pakistanis, PIDE – Most of
the PDR publications in the 1960s were produced either by foreign affiliates of PIDE or the
East Pakistanis at PIDE. The relocation of PIDE to Dhaka further widened these regional
differences as many West Pakistani economists were hesitant to move to Dhaka. Upon the
creation of Bangladesh, this highly skilled human capital was not only staffed in the
Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies but also in the Bangladesh Planning
Commission. Pakistan was left with non-researchers to work at PIDE as well as the Planning
Commission.
The initial capacity building aid by the Ford Foundation was phased out in the 1970s – replaced
by United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), USAID and bilateral donors in most of
the 1980s. In 1979, USAID provided an endowment grant of Rupees 20 million. An additional
15 million Rupees came from various firms and investment corporations. Over the years, the
government has become the major donor in order to promote the long-term development
agenda of the country – mainly through budgetary allocations, and no significant funding is
available from the traditional foreign donors.
In 1982, Pakistan Society of Development Economists was founded. The Annual General
Meeting of the Society is a major conference on economics in the country, which brings
together all the key stakeholders on development issues.
Moving to Islamabad, and being in close geographic proximity to the QAU, gave PIDE the
then best available graduates of the QAU, who became the backbone of PIDE in the years to
come. In the 1990s, the institute faced new challenges of competition as there was a rise of
think tanks such as SDPI, MHHDC, LUMS, and Applied Economic Research Centre (AERC)
with less rigid structures. In the meantime, due to structural adjustment programmes, the
government funding to PIDE did not increase which led to a decline in real terms. This resulted
in: dependence upon contractual studies commissioned by various donors; dilution of the
research agenda due to focus on short-term projects and; loss of prestige and brain drain
towards NGOs, international agencies, and the private sector.
After relocation to Islamabad, PIDE’s staff became engaged in teaching at various universities
as visiting faculty members. Its Board decided in 1998 to utilise its teaching capacity by
introducing and running a doctoral training programme to overcome the deficiency of PhDs in
42
the country. The Federal Government awarded PIDE a degree awarding status in 2003,
however, under the HEC reforms, it was asked to initiate at least 5 departments in order to
retain the status of a degree awarding institute. Currently, PIDE is running six MPhil and one
PhD programmes. The earliest phase of this transition exhausted its faculty members, who
undertook teaching and administrative responsibilities as Deans, Heads of Departments, and
teaching staff. This had serious consequences for their research engagements. PIDE
cherishes its successful transition towards a teaching institute at postgraduate level. In order
to meet its teaching needs, PIDE has, since the beginning of this transition, been offering the
status of visiting faculty members to teachers employed at universities like QAU, NUST, and
the International Islamic University.
Working as the official think tank of the Planning Commission of the Government of Pakistan,
PIDE has historically enjoyed easy access to policymaking. This transition from a think tank
to university not only reduced PIDE’s research outputs but also had further implications for its
policy outreach. It had always been engaged in policy advocacy using various public forums,
including mass media. Its transition into a university resulted in a sharp decline in the level of
its engagement with stakeholders, including popular media, reducing its visibility in the policy
arena in a context of policy research landscape increasingly becoming competitive. More
importantly, unlike other think tanks outside the public sector, there is a lack of incentive
structures for PIDE’s faculty to engage in external resource mobilisation for research. With the
declined research output, low visibility and continued financial pressures due to its inability to
raise funding, PIDE struggles to retain its prestigious position in the landscape of policy
research in Pakistan. Evident in this transitory phase is the ambivalence between its
orientation as a university and a think tank. This tension is also visible from the recent creation
of its School of Public Policy where engagement with public policy is conceived through
teaching academic courses rather than through practical engagement with policy problems at
the federal and provincial levels.
Teaching is demanding and we cannot delay it as academic programmes follow their
own calendars. If we don’t have sufficient human resources to conduct research, we
might keep meeting the teaching demands only. We are constantly thinking about
keeping the balance between teaching and research, say by dividing the time of our
faculty members 50% for teaching and 50% for research, or some staff as full time
teachers and others as full time researchers…we also need to align our research
43
programmes such that the projects undertaken by MPhil students are coherently
aligned with our research programmes.46
PIDE’s case demonstrates the centrality of external aid in creating and strengthening research
capacities in Pakistan. It illustrates the subtle role of QAU in rebuilding its human resource
capacity after its relocation to Islamabad. It also shows the competition it has been facing with
other think tanks in retaining influence over public policies over the years. Most importantly,
its transition into university elaborates the conflicting demands of teaching and policy research
given the structural differences that separate the two worlds. If PIDE overcomes the inherent
tensions in this transition from think tank to research, it has a tremendous potential to offer
policy analysis of rigorous academic standards.
Case 2: Aga Khan University – Institute of Educational Development
While the overall engagement of universities in policy research remains sparse, the research
oriented AKU is, however, internationally recognised for its strong research tradition in the
disciplines of social sciences, humanities, basic and clinical sciences, and education.
Established in 1983 as a private university mainly located in Karachi, it has four other
campuses in Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and the UK.
The most distinguishing feature sustaining a rigorous research tradition at the university is the
institutional arrangements in place to increase researchers’ access to the external competitive
research grants at the national, regional and international level. It also has a strong internal
University Research Council, which channelizes the internal research grants and; a) develops
university’s research focus; b) monitors research integrity; c) lays out research policies and
guidelines; and d) annually reviews research activities. The university encourages the faculty
to seek long-term external research funding, which can then support graduate students, post-
doctoral and clinical research and dissemination of research through conferences, seminars
and outreach, promoting national and international partnerships. AKU proactively seeks
international collaborations with universities and acclaimed research institutions
internationally. The office of the Dean of Research and Graduate Studies particularly ensures
high standards of grant management and transparency in research funds as required by
external commissioners of research by developing the appropriate procedures and processes.
Moreover, the Dean’s office also assists faculty members in preparing bids for research
programmes, serving as an information clearing house and provides the oversight of
externally-funded research programmes.
46 Individual interview with senior official at PIDE.
44
We illustrate the case of AKU by focusing upon its Institute of Educational Development (AKU-
IED) which was established in 1993 as a teaching and training institute, and holds the most
prominent position in the landscape of educational research in Pakistan. Over the last 10
years, the institute has conducted 323 research studies on a number of educational issues
such as: teacher education; curricula studies; teaching and learning; educational leadership;
mathematics and science education; English language teaching; early childhood education
and development; pedagogy and assessment; educational leadership and policy studies; and,
open and distance education. Until March 2012, its publications included 145 peer reviewed
papers published in international journals, 60 books, 118 book chapters and 134 conference
proceedings. This is probably the largest amount of research on education produced in the
given duration by any single educational research institute in the country. IED is uniquely
positioned in the policy research landscape due to its multiple roles as academic and policy
research institute along with strong ties with the educational practices. Its research not only
informs public policies at various levels but also the education practices through the institute’s
strong linkages with the Aga Khan Education Services that runs a large number of schools in
various parts of the country.
It is important to highlight here that unlike the other institutes of higher education, the work-
hours of the faculty members at the AKU-IED are equally distributed between teaching and
research. The university also provides financial resources for conducting research with a
strong emphasis upon quality assurance. The Research and Policy Studies Initiative of the
IED is particularly aimed at strengthening the capacity of the institute to engage with policy
research and disseminate research at a wider level through conferences, seminars and formal
and informal dialogues with policy makers.
In line with the overall tradition of collaborative research at the university, the centre frequently
partners with other research institutions internationally. Its partnerships so far have been with:
Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto; Sheffield Hallam University;
Oxford University; Institute of Education, University of London; Centre for Global Citizenship
Education and Research; and the Department of Educational Policy Studies, University of
Alberta. There is, however, a lack of partnership with local universities and think tanks.
IED’s case demonstrates that university departments/institutes can be the active providers of
policy research; however, there are certain preconditions for this convergence which include:
a) Financial sustainability through access to internal resources and capacity building to
tap external resources.
b) A strong tradition of research at the university
45
c) Institutional arrangements to encourage faculty members to conduct research as
evident from the equal distribution of the time of the faculty between teaching and
research.
d) An appreciation of the importance of engaging with policies and practical interventions
as well as dissemination and communication of research findings at the wider level.
e) Openness to collaborate with external partners and the capacity to sustain such
collaborations.
f) The university’s reputation of being non-partisan and free from political interference.
Case 3: University-Think Tank Collaborations: A Case Study of Sustainable
Development Policy Institute (SDPI)
SDPI is the premier think tank of Pakistan, established in 1992 on the recommendation of the
Pakistan National Conservation Strategy emphasising socio-economic development within
the context of a national environmental plan. With its broad mission to promote social justice
within and across generations, the institute provides policy advice to the government and the
private sector; organizes policy dialogues; supports in-house, visiting and external
researchers; publishes research and policy analysis; conducts North-South South-South
dialogue; engages in advocacy and networking at various levels; and builds capacities of
various stake-holders through its training programmes. Over the last two decades, it has
played a key role in the development of various national and provincial plans, policies and
reforms in relation to the key areas of sustainable development in Pakistan. The current
leadership of SDPI serves on a number of National Advisory Councils/Committees thus
making a direct contribution to various public policies.
SDPI has collaborated widely with a number of research institutions within Pakistan and
abroad on knowledge generation and its dissemination and the advocacy for policy change,
and capacity building. It has also conducted some research projects in collaboration with
universities, the longest one spans over 12 years with the University of Zurich under the
National Centre for Competence in Research (NCCR). Other such initiatives include (but are
not limited to), ‘Reclamation of Chemically Contaminated Sites in Pakistan’ in collaboration
with the Agroscope Reckenholz Tänikon Research Station, Zurich, and the Environmental
Science Department of the University of Peshawar. Similarly, ‘Livelihoods futures in resource-
scarce areas and the quest for the inclusion of marginal groups’, led by the NCCR North-
South, is another project under which SDPI collaborated with the University of Agriculture,
Faisalabad (UAF). The UAF has led the research and analysis jointly with the SDPI
researchers and SDPI has taken a lead on wider dissemination of the research findings and
46
networking for policy change. The key challenge in the collaboration highlighted by a UAF
based researcher was the political nature of the proposed policy interventions which were
against the academic tradition of the university. This collaboration has opened up further
venues for collaboration. SDPI’s Executive Director has been supervising doctoral research
at the university and is currently appointed as the Adjunct Professor. He is also serving on the
Board of Studies of two departments at the university.
Moreover, since 2012, SDPI is hosting the IDRC funded ‘Fellowships in Governance, Security
and Justice in South Asia’ which funds the MPhil and PhD research students at the South
Asian universities through a competitive programme. In the first two of this four year
programme, a total of 14 Fellowships are awarded. The process serves as an excellent
interface between SDPI and the university throughout the process – application, selection and
monitoring of the programme.
While examples of institutional collaboration with universities on research are few, there are
numerous instances of engagement with universities for dissemination and policy advocacy.
SDC is the flagship three-day policy advocacy event hosted annually by SDPI. The 16th SDC
was held in December 2013. It provides a forum not only for sharing SDPI's own research but
also a rich mix of external researchers, academicians, scientists, policy makers and experts
from different fields participate, interact with each other, suggest policy recommendations and
enter into ongoing policy dialogue. In the latest SDC; out of the 105 speakers, a rough estimate
suggest that almost 27% of them were affiliated with national or international universities and
34% with think tanks and the others from the government, international organisations and
individual experts. The table below further presents the breakdown of participants (speakers)
in the last five SDCs identifying the strength of collaboration.
47
Table 5: Representation of universities in the annual SDCs
As evident from the table, almost one-third of the panellists in the SDCs over the last five years
have come from universities and a slightly higher number has come from the think tanks. In
addition to those who present their research, a large number of university students and
teachers attend this event and interact with other audiences and speakers. SDC has become
a key source of academics’ interaction with policy research and dialogue. Alongside the SDC,
SDPI organizes weekly seminars, distinguished lectures, special seminars, guest lectures and
roundtables that are widely attended by academics, not only as speakers, but also as the
audience. SDPI’s new initiative, the web-based Sustainable Development Television, provides
yet another opportunity for academics to disseminate their work or share their perspective on
certain policies and issues with the public at large.
Another initiative, which brings SDPI into engagement with universities, is its recently initiated
research programme on the knowledge systems for policymaking in Pakistan and South Asia.
The activities under this programme have included a landscaping of the institutions engaged
in policy research in Pakistan, a deeper understanding of the political economy of policy
research, and this ongoing study on the relationship between think tanks and universities in
South Asia. Various dissemination activities under this programme have brought together the
heads of think tanks and universities to discuss the core issues affecting their research
capacities and scope, and challenges in engaging with policy makers. In May 2014, for
48
example, six vice-chancellors of various public sector universities, one Rector, and the HEC
Chairman were invited to debate on the overall societal role of universities particularly in
solving the problems faced by society and the policy makers. It also debated the need for
developing mechanisms for incentivizing the engagement of university academics in
policymaking. In a similar spirit, SDPI is proactively interacting with various universities and
exploring the opportunities for various joint ventures.
The SDPI case study illustrates how the role of increased external funding, for example, from
the Swiss National Science Foundation and IDRC, helped it proactively reach out to the
universities and engage them in long-term research collaboration. The IDRC’s Think Tank
Initiative support has helped SDPI researchers to devote more time and resources on the
otherwise non-commissioned but highly policy relevant themes. An increase in such research
outputs has extended SDPI’s engagement in policymaking and an overall reputation resulting
in an increased number of universities approaching SDPI for collaboration.
Case 4: Mahbub-ul-Haq Human Development Centre
The Mahbub-ul-Haq Human Development Centre (MHHDC) provides another illustration of
the ways think tanks and universities interact with each other in Pakistan. It was established
in 1995 by the renowned economist and the co-founder of the human development paradigm,
Mahbub-ul-Haq, with a vision to address the real challenge of human development given
massive poverty, illiteracy and poor health in South Asia. MHHDC has been producing the
annual South Asia Human Development Report under various themes since its inception.
The Centre emerged as a strong voice for greater investment in key areas of human
development in the region. Given the global recognition of the leadership of the Centre and
strong influence within national policies, its focus largely remained on research with minimum
involvement in advocacy activities. Led by senior researchers, it has relied on a team of young
researchers and external experts from South Asian countries, conducting background
research for the annual South Asia HDRs. In 2005, the Centre expanded its human resource
capacity after partnering with the Universities of Cambridge, Oxford and Edinburgh under the
five years (2005-10) Research Consortium on Educational Outcomes and Poverty (RECOUP).
RECOUP explored the social, economic and human development outcomes of education for
the poor in developing countries. Various themes of the project were led by the academics
based at these universities who worked closely with MHHDC based researchers with a strong
focus on building their capacities. The project contributed, directly or indirectly, to three PhDs
at Cambridge and one at Edinburgh universities. Moreover the research produced under the
consortium on education and poverty has informed national policies.
49
The Centre was set up as a sister organisation of the National University of Computer and
Emerging Sciences (NUCES, also known as FAST) under the Foundation for Human
Development. There were thus institutional linkages with the university right from the
inception. However, the technology focused nature of the university without academic
departments of economics or social sciences meant there was little relevant analytical support
available at the university for the Centre.
In 2010, the Centre decided to collaborate with LUMS as a reliable arrangement to provide
intellectual and institutional support when needed without compromising its institutional legacy
and individual identity. As a result, the Centre was relocated from Islamabad to LUMS campus
in Lahore, although as a tenant, without entitlement to the institutional cross-subsidies at this
stage. There is, however, an increased informal interaction between researchers at MHHDC
and the LUMS academic community, and a greater participation in the seminars individually
organised by both institutions. The Vice-Chancellor of LUMS is also the member of the Board
of Governors of MHHDC. There is also an increasing number of young researchers graduating
from LUMS and joining the Centre. While the Centre has geographically distanced itself from
the Islamabad based traditional policymaking communities due to its relocation to Lahore, it
is, however benefiting from the emerging knowledge agglomeration in Lahore.
In contrast to most of the think tanks in the country that are financially vulnerable and
dependent upon project funding, the Centre has always enjoyed a long-term programme
support for its annual HDRs by a number of donors, including the UNDP. Its unique
collaboration with LUMS in the wake of its perceived future challenges for human resources
offers a dependable solution while also adding an academic rigour to its research.
H. Conclusion
The analysis and evidences presented in this paper suggest that the formal knowledge
systems for policymaking – think tanks and universities – are based on a weak foundation of
social sciences in the country. The ongoing higher education reforms offer an opportunity to
improve these foundations but only if their inherent bias against social sciences is addressed.
Our analysis also suggests that think tanks and universities are conceptually and structurally
different organisations hence are differently located in the landscape of knowledge systems
for policymaking despite an overlap of the broader agenda of contributing to informed public
policies. Thus the interaction between think tanks and universities is understandably limited
and informal. The existing regimes of funding policy research also tend to create and maintain
separation between the two groups of institutions. The key question resulting from this
analysis is; what are the best ways to strengthen the relationships between think tanks and
universities in the country? However, the even more fundamental question for those
50
concerned with strengthening the overall knowledge systems for policymaking is whether an
increased interaction between think tanks and universities can strengthen the overall policy
knowledge environment.
So, what are the possible gains of the increased interaction between think tanks and
universities for the overall landscape of policy research and hence policymaking in the
country? We have demonstrated that both groups of institutions have their own strengths and
weaknesses given their distinct nature, visions and missions, career trajectories and sources
of funding. Bringing them closer to each other potentially offers them opportunities to
overcome their weaknesses by building upon each other’s strengths. Based on these insights,
we anticipate that the increased collaboration can contribute to improve following core aspects
of effective policy research.
1. Relevance: Think tanks exist because of the strong relevance of their research to
public policies, whereas universities are remotely linked to policy processes. It is only
now that questions are being raised about the social gains of investments in higher
education to redefine the role of universities in society beyond teaching. An increased
interaction with think tanks can potentially import the pragmatic agendas of policy
problem solving to the university research.
2. Quality: Given the disciplinary orientation and methodological rigor involved in peer
reviewed academic research, think tanks can improve the quality of their research
outputs by involving academics at various stages of their research project cycles.
3. Outreach: Universities rarely disseminate their research at a large-scale, apart from
selected audiences through academic publications; they don’t reach out to
policymakers; they are also least known to network and lobby for policy change. On
the other hand, think tanks are known for these activities. Through collaboration with
think tanks, universities can widely disseminate their research and build networks.
4. Timeliness: Think tanks have comparative advantage in providing somewhat real time
analysis and input in the policy processes. Their interaction with university based
academics can increase their engagement with contemporary policy issues, which
academics take a long time to involve with otherwise.
5. Autonomy: By using a reductionist approach to an otherwise broad notion of
autonomy, we can see think tanks and universities are differently located on the scales
of autonomy from political powers, more specifically the government and
bureaucracies, and the donors of their research. In terms of autonomy from political
51
parties and the government bureaucracies, think tanks in Pakistan have succeeded in
negotiating a higher agency, which is their greatest achievement, and are doing better
than universities. However, in terms of research priorities being somewhat influenced
by the commissioners of policy research, universities demonstrate considerable
autonomy in contrast to think tanks. Increased interaction of the two groups of
institutions can generate critical reflections on these aspects of their research and
hence contribute towards an overall independent knowledge creation for decision-
making in the country.
6. Innovation: Effective policy research requires flexibility and innovation in engaging
with issues across disciplines and methodologies, and across the range of
stakeholders. Think tanks research demonstrates a high level of inter-disciplinarity as
well as procedural flexibility in their day to day operations in contrast to universities
where disciplinary boundaries are strict and procedures are complicated. Engagement
of university academics on think tank led projects can provide them the opportunity to
communicate across disciplines and expose them to alternative institutional
arrangements that facilitate greater engagement with policy processes and
stakeholders.
There are thus sufficient normative grounds for making the case for increased interactions
between think tanks and universities as they can contribute to improved decision-making by
adding to overall effectiveness of policy research. This takes us to our earlier question on how
best to increase these interactions and on the role that external support to policy research can
play.
Funding has to play a crucial role in strengthening these relationships. However, merely
increasing the size of grants disbursed for policy research will not bring about any significant
change given the structural differences between the two groups of institutions. There is instead
a need to somewhat blur the tight boundaries separating the two groups of institutions through
both funding and non-funding interventions. It is important to trigger the debate for rethinking
the societal role of universities beyond teaching and training so that they may engage
themselves with the practical problems faced by society. The orientation of their research
needs to move beyond sole concerns with the ‘impact-factor’ towards making a real ‘impact’
on society. This, however, requires considering policy analysis worthy of academic
recognition. Think tanks need to be recognised as legitimate knowledge creation entities
instead of mere NGOs. HEC can play a significant role in this regard. There is a need to
encourage the exchange of appropriately qualified staff at both groups of institutions under
specific arrangements without disrupting their careers. Lastly, external donors need to move
52
away from the tradition of funding short-term projects with narrowly defined agendas towards
long-term research programmes respecting the autonomy of research providers and
encouraging them to develop linkages across the two groups of institutions.
53
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Annex A: List of key informants interviewed
No. Interviewee Think Tank/University Name City Date of
Interview
1 Dr. Vaqar Ahmed Sustainable Development Policy
Institute, SDPI,
Islamabad 23 Oct 2013
2 Dr. Suleman Humayun Institute of Social and Policy
Sciences, I-SAPS
Islamabad 24 Oct 2013
3 Mr. Abdul Basit Khan National Institute of Population
Studies, NIPS
Islamabad 25 Oct 2013
4 Mr. Zahid Abdullah Centre for Peace and
Development Initiative, CPDI
Islamabad 28 Oct 2013
5 Dr. Rasul Baksh Rais Institute of Strategic Studies,
Islamabad, ISSI
Islamabad 28 Oct 2013
6 Dr. Sania Nishter Heartfile Islamabad 29 Oct 2013
7 Dr. Maria Sultan South Asian Strategic Stability
Institute, SASSI
Islamabad 04 Nov 2013
8 Mr. Hassan Akbar Jinnah Institute, JI Islamabad 07 Nov 2013
9 Mr. Khalid Rehman Institute of Policy Studies, IPS Islamabad 11 Nov 2013
10 Dr. Rasheed Khalid Quaid-i-Azam University,
Department of Defense and
Strategic Studies,
Islamabad 11 Nov 2013
11 Dr. Aliya Khan Quaid-i-Azam University - School
of Economics
Islamabad 11 Nov 2013
12 Dr. Muhammad Islam IQRA University Islamabad 12 Nov 2013
13 Dr. Arshad
Muhammad Khan
Global Change Impact Studies
Centre, GCISC
Islamabad 13 Nov 2013
56
14 Professor. N. B.
Jumani
International Islamic University,
Islamabad, Faculty of Social
Sciences
Islamabad 13 Nov 2013
15 Dr. Anjum Nasim Institute of Development and
Economic Alternatives, IDEAS
Lahore 19 Nov 2013
16 Dr. Naved Hamid Lahore School of Economics –
Centre for Research in Economics
and Business, LSE-CREB
Lahore 19 Nov 2013
17 Ms. Hina Shekh International Growth Centre Lahore 19 Nov 2013
18 Mr. Abbas Rashid Society for the Advancement of
Education, SAHE
Lahore 20 Nov 2013
19 Dr. Khalid Manzoor
Butt
Government College University,
Department of Political Science
Lahore 21 Nov 2013
20 Dr. Khalid Mahmood University of Education Lahore 21 Nov 2013
21 Dr. Tasneem Zafar &
Uzair
Government College University,
Department of Economics
Lahore 21 Nov 2013
22 Prof. Mohammad
Aslam
University of Health Sciences Lahore 22 Nov 2013
23 Professor Micheal
Cullen
Centre for Economic Research in
Pakistan, CERP
Lahore 22 Nov 2013
24 Dr. Aisha Gauss
Pasha
Beaconhouse National University,
Institute of Public Policy, BNU-IPP
Lahore 25 Nov 2013
25 Dr. Iqrar Ahmed Khan Agriculture University of Faisalabd Faisalabad 24 Nov 2013
26 Prof Malahat Kaleem
Shervani
Applied Economic Research
Centre, AREC
Karachi 28 Nov 2013
27 Muhammad Asif Iqbal Social Policy Development
Centre, SPDC
Karachi 28 Nov 2013
57
28 Dr. Shehla Zaidi Aga Khan University, AKU Karachi 29 Nov 2013
29 Dr. Dilshad Ashraf Aga Khan University, Institute for
Educational Development
Karachi 29 Nov 2013
30 Dr. Muhammad Zakria
Zakar
Punjab University, Institute of
Social and Cultural Studies
Karachi 23 Nov 2013
31 Dr. GM Arif Pakistan Institute of Development
Economics, PIDE
Islamabad
32 Professor Asad
Zaman
International Institute of Islamic
Economics, International Islamic
University, IIIE-IIU
Islamabad
58
Annex B: Landscape of the institutions of policy research in Pakistan – geographical
mapping
Source (Naveed 2013a).
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